


Some Dance to Remember, Some Dance to Forget

by abluestocking



Category: Angelmaker - Nick Harkaway
Genre: F/F, Identity Porn, Women in Love
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-12-17
Updated: 2014-12-17
Packaged: 2018-03-01 21:50:24
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,145
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2788976
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/abluestocking/pseuds/abluestocking
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Five times Commander Banister spends time with Frankie, and once that Edie is just Edie.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Some Dance to Remember, Some Dance to Forget

**Author's Note:**

  * For [bravofiftyone](https://archiveofourown.org/users/bravofiftyone/gifts).



i.

After Frankie Fossoyeur saves the Cuparah from being blown up and its passengers from being sent beyond the reach of not only the Kriegsmarine and the Nippon Kaigun, but life itself, Edie Banister – or Commander James Banister, rather – finds herself leaning against the side of the ship, watching the small dark-haired woman work.

They are a thousand feet underwater. Too deep, far too deep, for survival; and yet they survive, by the talents of the woman in front of her and the skin of their teeth. Edie will see home again – if nothing else happens, and inasmuch as anywhere is home for her now. The orphanage certainly wasn't home. Perhaps the _Lovelace_ is home. Or perhaps home is now wherever Edie chooses it to be, carried on her back like one of Darwin's tortoises.

“You stare, Banister,” Frankie says. 

Edie pushes off from the wall, aware of the mustache she still wears, the uniform – crushed and worse for wear, after first the battle with Shem Shem Tsien and then the frantic race to blow off a piece of their own ship's hull. She can still feel the raw rasped surfaces of her fingers, the jaggedness of her chipped nails, sacrificed to save a screaming, dying boat and all of their lives. 

But it was this woman who saved their lives. Edie, who is very good at her job – Edie, who infiltrated a bloodthirsty foreign ruler's palace with little more than sangfroid and a green banana – finds that Frankie's competence, her brilliance, nearly takes her breath away. Her mobile, attractive face is already turning away again, going back to her work, and Edie reaches out, before that can happen.

“You need to eat,” Edie says, holding out the rations Amanda Baines had given her. _Talk to your scientist_ , had been the order, followed quickly by _and get that elephant out of my state room_.

Frankie raises one shoulder in a little half-shrug. “I will eat when I am done.”

“Will something implode or explode if you take ten minutes to eat?” Edie asks, taking another step closer.

That makes Frankie look at her, really look. Edie stands still under the scrutiny and hopes that her mustache hasn't gone crooked in all the confusion. She could, perhaps, resume normal clothing now, but the uniform had been of help during the chaos and fright of the underwater attack. And surely someone as intelligent as Frankie will see right through the clothing to the bones beneath, through Commander James Banister and his light insouciance to the girl who once was Edie of the Lady Gravely School.

“No,” Frankie says, after a long moment. “It will not.”

“Then come and eat,” Edie says, spreading her already bedraggled jacket on the floor. She sat on it while threading washers and nuts onto bolts by hand, working to keep the metal shell of the _Cuparah_ from cracking like the eggboat of the old woman's rhyme, so she can certainly sit on it now, in this stolen moment of quiet.

Frankie joins her, and they dine together at the bottom of the sea.

~

ii.

Edie hasn't seen much of Frankie during the war years. Having proven himself in battle - however aided by war elephants – Commander James Banister has been much in demand for Abel Jasmine's missions, and Frankie has been off winning the war, single-handed, grappling with sonar and mathematics and who knows what else. The uniform Edie wore to rescue her fascinating scientist has become a second part of her, and she even feels at one with the mustache. Now that the war is over, she wonders if she will have to surrender her wartime identity, and become plain Edith Banister again. 

They send Commander Banister to escort Frankie home to rural France. The war may be over, but the wounds it ripped into the countrysides of Europe have not yet faded; a single woman, prone to distraction and not particularly worldly-wise, is better off with an escort. Edie wears her uniform, and they ensconce themselves in the little sleeper compartment of the train to Marseilles. They have been in closer spaces, huddled in the belly of a ship at the bottom of an ocean; and yet Edie finds that, removed from danger, Frankie's nearness makes her mouth grow dry in a singularly distracting way.

After, she wonders if Abel Jasmine knew what they would find in Frankie's hometown – if he had seen the attraction between them - if he had sent her along not only to guard Frankie against attack, but to hold her against the mud and horror and devastation, that wrought destruction which chilled the soul. There was no grim exhausted beauty in the landscape of Europe, only the aftermath of a desperate fight for survival, and the news that Frankie's family had been denounced to Vichy as traitors and died in the camps.

Before, on the train to Marseilles, Frankie propositions her with a smile and the simple grasp of a hand, and Edie finds that not only is her own attraction reciprocated, but that Frankie does indeed see through the clothes and down to the bones. Her sex is no surprise, and of less novelty than the warmth of her lips and the smell of her skin, which Frankie drinks in as if drowning, throwing herself into making love as wholeheartedly as she does into her work, beautiful and free.

“Your skin is soft,” Frankie says, using her fingertips and her lips to map the freckles on Edie's chest as if they were a code, symbols to help them win the war. 

But the war is won, and the goosebumps on Edie's arms are no longer an instinctual reaction to the sound of planes overhead and the crash of bombs, but raised on her skin by something much more pleasant. 

“Your eyes are bright,” she says in return, leaving James' cultivated baritone for her own higher pitch. It is a compliment which Frankie will have no empirical way of knowing, because you do not see the sparkle in your own eyes, however much you might try to catch it in a mirror.

Frankie is warm beside her, underneath her, on top of her, and before they alight from the train into the shipwreck of Frankie's past, they have a few short hours of joy.

~

iii.

At the table next to them, a young lawyer shyly presses his suit with a pretty girl in a periwinkle dress. In the corner, a very elderly and stout lady laughs at the jokes of her immensely wrinkled husband. By the window, a nondescript couple makes polite conversation over the last of their sandwiches.

“You could have brought someone else,” Frankie says, taking a bite of her own sandwich.

Edie tears her attention away from the rituals of human interaction playing out in their never-ending multitudes all around them. “I could have,” she agrees. Any number of fellow agents would have been happy to accompany the dashing Commander Banister for an afternoon out. If the best tea in town was included, all the better; the war might be over, but it has long shadows, and carefree moments are still few. 

Not that this outing is entirely carefree. Edie's marks, the couple by the window, are suspected spies, and today is merely the latest of information-gathering attempts. It is, however, the first on which Edie is accompanied by Frankie; an indulgence, but one Edie thinks she's earned. She's been kept so busy the last few months that they've rarely seen each other, and without Edie to coax her into taking breaks, Frankie's been spending endless hours in her lab. Edie doesn't disagree with saving the world on principle – she's doing her best herself – but she does wish Frankie would sleep now and then.

“The tea is acceptable,” Frankie allows. “Although tea could have been made at home.”

The couple by the window have finished their sandwiches, and are beginning leisurely preparations to leave. Edie and Frankie will follow, at a safe distance. If they were required to do anything intensive, she would never have brought Frankie along, but this is a simple surveillance job, keeping an eye on the marks while another team raids their flat. It's too simple for Edie's skills, really, but everyone does their bit, and when she saw the chance to persuade Frankie out into the afternoon sunshine, she'd leapt on it.

“If we'd made tea at home,” Edie says, her hand unhurriedly sketching the gesture on the tablecloth that she'd told Frankie would mean 'time to leave', “we wouldn't have been able to enjoy the afternoon together.”

Frankie thinks about this, even as they collect themselves and stroll casually out onto the street, arm in arm. To all observers, they are an unremarkable couple, a handsome young officer and his slightly ferocious-looking sweetheart. The intensity that shines from Frankie's face is something that Edie loves, but it does tend to make her catch the eye. Still, her vibrancy could be attributed to the salubrious effects of a lovers' tryst, and not the constant output of a brilliant mind unparalleled in Europe.

(Edie may be slightly biased. However, she remembers the way Abel Jasmine sent her across the world to rescue Frankie from one of the most cold-blooded tyrannical killers imaginable, in order to prevent Frankie's work from being used for darkly nefarious ends. She isn't the only one to see the woman by her side as truly exceptional.)

“It is nice to walk in the sunshine,” Frankie concedes, as they follow their marks at a decorous distance. Edie leans close, keeping up her impression of a man besotted. “And the air has an invigorating effect. It has caused me to think of a new way to approach the question...”

Edie listens to Frankie talk about her work, keeps an eye on their marks, and leaves her hand pressed on top of Frankie's. She can think of nowhere else she'd rather be.

~

iv.

Last month, Edie battled Shem Shem Tsien and revealed her identity to him: a slim young woman in a Commander's uniform, Britannia disguised as one of her lordly scions. He is in hiding again now, although Edie knows better than to think he has been banished forever. He will return someday, to haunt her life and Frankie's, bent on revenge and on bloodthirsty rule. 

If that day is today, she is prepared. She has enough weapons concealed on her frame for a small brigade, as well as her own skills in hand-to-hand combat. Frankie, who stands by her side looking almost unrecognizable in a dainty dress, will be well protected, whatever may happen.

“I do not understand why Jane wished me to be a bridesmaid,” Frankie says. “I have found her work to be excellent, but I do not approve of her desire to shackle herself to one man for the rest of her life. It is illogical, and guided by the urge to participate in the ludicrous construction of the Judeo-Christian Patriarchy.”

Edie remembers a similar pronouncement from the first time they went to bed together. Now, as then, it doesn't bother her. Frankie may not believe in committing oneself to loving one person forever, but they have been together three years and Edie has no complaints. Every time she sees Frankie – no matter if it has been two hours or two months, with the varying length of Edie's foreign assignments – she finds that she is just as overcome by the sparkle in her eyes. 

“Jane's happy,” she says, in Commander Banister's deeper tones. “She wants you here to witness that.”

She could, perhaps, have come as herself. Jane is not a particular friend of hers, but all of Abel Jasmine's troops are bound together by the strength of their purpose. To come as herself, however, she would have had to find new hiding places for her weapons in an unfamiliar female costume, and she would not have been able to stand at Frankie's side as her companion and paramour. After these years, Commander Banister is nearly more familiar than her own self, whoever that may be – orphan, recruit, agent, lover – and she thinks she would miss him, if she had to give him up forever.

“I am happy too,” Frankie says, twitching her skirt irritably, “and I am not interested in forcing everyone to lose a day of work and dress in difficult costumes.”

Edie imagines asking Frankie to marry her, imagines dropping down on one knee in the mud and putting on Commander Banister's most earnest face. It is beyond ridiculous.

She tucks Frankie's hand more securely into the crook of her arm instead. “People show their happiness in different ways,” she says, when Frankie turns to look at her. “Perhaps we can show ours at home by ourselves later.”

Frankie's eyes are bright. “It would be indecent to be that kind of happy in public,” she agrees, with a spark of mischief.

Commander Banister throws back his head and laughs. Jane's new husband observes to his bride that her friend Frankie's fellow seems a decent sort of chap, and quite besotted.

~

v.

A step outside their flat, Edie is too tired to breathe. Her uniform weighs her down, as does her head, which feels too large for her body. A bullet grazed her forehead during a chase down an alley, but it is the lack of sleep that throbs the worst. Perhaps she should have stopped for a night in Paris and slept for a full 24 hours before finishing her return journey – but that would have delayed her return for 24 hours, and after another close call with death, Edie found that all she wanted was to be home again.

A step inside their flat, Edie feels the tiredness flow away like water, because Frankie is standing there with a candle. It is the middle of the night, and for once she hasn't been burning the midnight oil, because her workmanlike trousers have been exchanged for a long nightshirt Edie recognizes as one of her own. Her face is sleep-rumpled, but her eyes are as bright as ever, and Edie steps across the little room and into her arms.

“I have a candle,” Frankie says warningly, but sighs and steers them towards the table so she can set it down. Edie doesn't want to let her go, not tonight.

There are kisses, warm and rejuvenating, and then Frankie asks when she last ate.

“Paris,” Edie says, or was it sometime before that, she isn't sure any longer. 

If she had the energy, she would strip off her uniform and find another nightshirt, or simply go without. But she finds that she wants all her energy to watch Frankie, who goes bustling about the room in the candlelight, pulling out various items of food. Edie hasn't been home in three weeks to buy groceries, so the available provisions are somewhat scarce; Frankie easily forgets such things, and has been known to live on bread and cheese for a week.

They make a little dinner on their bed, bread and cheese and chocolate, and Frankie brews tea, just as she always does. It would be easy to fall asleep like this, smiling at Frankie in the flickering light from the candle, but Edie just yawns and lets Frankie feed her bites of bread instead, concentration on that brilliantly mobile face. When Frankie shivers – it is late at night, and cold – Edie shrugs off her uniform jacket and puts it around her shoulders.

Later, Frankie carefully sweeps the crumbs from the covers while Edie sheds the remnant of Commander Banister, and they warm each other under the blankets. Edie falls asleep on Frankie's shoulder, held close in her arms.

~

i.

Her mission orders have come, and tomorrow she will be off again to the Far East. Addeh Sikkim again, back where it all started, nearly two decades ago. She wonders if Shem Shem Tsien will be there this time, ready for the latest episode in their long-running battles. Her scars ache. 

Frankie comes to the study door. “I have made tea,” she announces.

Commander Banister's uniform hangs in the wardrobe, ready for action. There's a button that needs mending, although if she encounters Shem Shem Tsien her buttons will be the least of her worries. For now, however, the mending can wait.

Frankie's calculations all over the study are familiar friends to Edie now. They have been lovers for thirteen years, and Frankie is as much a part of her as her own breath. It frightens her, sometimes, she who is never frightened, to think of how dear Frankie has become to her; they have had enough near-disasters over the years to bring home just how fragile their happiness is. 

Edie drinks tea and holds hands with Frankie, simple and sure. 

“Frankie,” she says later, as she mends her buttons, “when you're with me, is there a part of you that's in love with Commander Banister?”

Frankie looks at her as if she's gone daft. “Commander Banister does not exist. He is you.”

Edie wonders sometimes. He seems as if he's taken on a life of his own; she has been Commander Banister for half of her life now. He's not a cipher, created to deceive enemies of the realm, or a disguise, to allow her to infiltrate where she could not go as herself. Or not merely those things. He is a man who has fought on all the continents of the globe, a man who has protected his sweetheart from the grasping covetousness of pure evil, a man who has gained the respect of dozens of fellow operatives and veterans. She holds herself in his posture now, often as not, and finds her voice slipping into his tones. Sometimes she wonders where she ends and where he begins.

How she would even begin to describe this to Frankie, she doesn't know. “I spend a lot of time in his uniform.”

“Uniform or not, mustache or not, man's name or not,” Frankie says, “you are my Edie. It is the bones that count. You are Edie down to your bones.” 

“Down to my bones,” Edie says, and smiles. She puts her mending away, and gets up to turn on the wireless. 

By the light of the moon through the study window, they dance together, the chalked mathematical equations whirling like comets' trails around them. Someday Edie will kill Shem Shem Tsien and make the world safe for them both. Perhaps tomorrow. Someday Frankie will finish inventing her Apprehension Engine and make the world a better place. Perhaps tomorrow.

Tonight, they dance in the moonlight, and then they go to bed together. In the night, Edie is bare of all things – Commander Banister, even herself – and is only the one whom Frankie loves, and the one who loves Frankie in return. It is enough.

~


End file.
